Jessica Ellis gets goose bumps when she speaks of the tennis club’s development programme.
And going by the way-too orderly folder – harbouring schedules and fact sheets and plans – she keeps tucked at her side, the project’s never too far from her mind. But given its scale, a neat paper trail is a necessity.
At more than 15 sessions over a seven-day week (yes, Monday to Sunday), Ellis and a band of club mates host training sessions with what adds up to hundreds of school learners at seven primary and high schools in the Cape Town City Bowl.
And while the order is not too structured – the kids have to have fun, after all – they’re not just winging it, either.
After kick-starting the club’s long-dormant development programme last year with Cape Town High School, Ellis joined forces with Michelle Whitehead in 2009. A well-known figure in South African tennis, Whitehead had launched an outreach initiative of her own, and invited the UCT club to help out.
Acting as assistant coaches to Whitehead and another coach (who has since left the programme), the students picked up enough of the basics of Whitehead’s Play & Stay programme to run the classes themselves. Approved by the International Tennis Federation, Play & Stay still calls for tennis essentials like rackets, balls and (smaller) nets, but foregoes the standard-sized court, often not available at schools.
Initially, the aim is just to encourage the kids to get the ball over the net as often as they can.
“Play & Stay is quite different from other teaching methods in that you’re not teaching technique,” says Ellis, 24. “You just give the child the opportunity, the net and the equipment, and in time they pick up the technique naturally.”
In fact, a few have shown such promise that Ellis and Whitehead are arranging a special workshop for them to pay a little more attention to technique and the like.
One worry, however, is the longevity of the programme. As other clubs have experienced, initiatives like these are very personality-driven. And when that personality moves on, the programmes fold.
Which is where that neat folder comes in.
Ellis, now in the final year of her fine-arts degree, is about to graduate. But she’s made things very simple for her successor, and, likely, her successor’s successor, with her fastidious record- and schedule-keeping.
“Right from the beginning, I was determined that this project was not going to be one of those that just fade out,” she says. “It’s very important to me that my baby [a laugh] doesn’t just stop.”
The rewards are too great, she adds. It’s chaos when the kids pour out of their classes onto the tennis site, but they’re keen.
“You can see how they’ve improved. They pick it up so quickly.”
Ellis, for one, will miss not being there next year. “It’s the highlight of my week.”
